Chinese scholars have made progress in the research of cryogenic brain protection

Figure Deep brain stimulation induced hypothermia has a neuroprotective effect on ischemic stroke

With the funding of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (approval number: 81871026) and other funds, the teams of Hou Shengtao and Song Kun of Southern University of Science and Technology and the team of Wang Yizheng of Huashan Hospital affiliated to Fudan University made progress in activating warm sensitive neurons in the medial preoptic nucleus (MPN) of the hypothalamus to induce hypothermia to achieve post-stroke brain protection Medil Preoptic Nucleus protects the brain in a mouse model of ischaemia", published online in Nature Communications on November 12
, 2022.
Link to the paper: https://doi.
org/10.
1038/s41467-022-34735-2
.

Stroke is a group of cerebrovascular diseases
with high morbidity, disability, and mortality.
Previous studies have found that hypothermia has a significant neuroprotective effect on stroke, but due to the low cooling efficiency of the body surface, it is easy to cause extreme discomfort in the human body, induce side reactions such as tremor and damage to organs, which greatly limits the clinical application
of hypothermia therapy.
There is hibernation and hibernation in nature, animals activate temperature-sensitive neurons to reduce the core body temperature and metabolic rate of the body, reduce energy consumption, maintain a low metabolic state, maintain various normal physiological indicators, and will not have side effects
such as tremor and visceral damage due to hypothermia.

This study draws on the phenomenon of hypothermia regulation in nature to carry out research
on the neuroprotective effect of stroke injury.
The team used deep brain stimulation to stimulate bilateral MPN region temperature-sensitive neurons, causing the core body temperature of mice to rapidly drop to a hypothermia state (32~34 degrees Celsius), and showing low metabolic characteristics such as oxygen uptake, thermogenesis and respiratory exchange rate, suggesting that deep brain stimulation technology can effectively induce the physiological state of hibernation in mice with sub-hypothermia (Figure).

Further studies have found that hypothermia induced by deep brain stimulation can effectively improve the neural injury behavior and exercise ability
of stroke mice.
This study provides new perspectives and strategies
for clinical brain protection and post-injury treatment.